Select a well-known novel that everyone has either read or seen the film (Wizard of Oz, Sound of Music, or similar). Split the group into 4 subgroups and give each a set of questions from one of the first 4 steps below. Each group will work together to answer their 4 questions. Put the answers to each question on a separate card or paper.

Step 1 Plot Basics

What is the inciting incident?

What events obstruct the story goal?

What is the decisive event at the climax of the story?

Describe the resolution?

Step 2 Main Character’s Arc

Describe the main character at the start of the story.

Describe how the MC is thrust into a situation where they are pressured to change.

Does the MC change, adopt a new approach, take uncharacteristic action or become more entrenched in attitude and approach?

At the end of the novel, is the mc better off because of their choices? Does the reader feel the MC has done the right thing?

Step 3 Consider the Impact Character’s Role (The IC, or characters, provide the pressure for change)

How does the IC express a different approach or attitude to the MC?

How does the IC pressure of influence the MC to either abandon his old ways or learn a new way of doing things?

At the climax, does the IC or the MC change and how is this illustrated?

Is the IC better or worse off at the end of the novel?

Step 4 The Major Relationship

What is the relationship at the beginning of the story?

How does the relationship develop or is tested during the story?

What happens at the climax (what is the decisive change)?

What is the relationship at the end of the story?

Part 2

Share and discuss the answers from part 1. Together, work on Step 5.

Step 5: Include Thematic Considerations

Consider any issues, themes, messages and or morals of the story. If they are a crucial part of the novel, write them on separate pieces of paper.

Part 3

Collect all the number one questions and answers together (beginning of the story), number twos and so on. Finally put the step 5 notes into the appropriate piles depending on where they’re illustrated in the story.

Each group to compose a paragraph or paragraphs of the synopsis, which covers the portion of the story they’ve been given.

Important points:

“All synopses are told in omniscient present tense. There are no exceptions to this rule.” Sheila Kelly

Always check the publisher’s guidelines for format, length and content, as what is required in a synopsis varies a great deal.

Do not staple or fasten pages together. Include a header/footer on every page with page number, author’s last name and title.

Do not use excess adverbs and adjectives.

“Present ideas in as short a form as possible. Example: “She was raised by nuns until she came of age to inherit her family fortune” can be converted into “convent-schooled heiress.” Sheila Kelly

Study TV guide & movie listings – this sounds funny, but it’s an excellent way to learn how to condense. Hollywood can reduce a two-hour movie into a single ten-word sentence and still make it sound exciting. Sheila Kelly

Go on the internet and critically analyse sample synopses

“The biggest mistake most people make when they try to write a synopsis for the first time is to create a bare bones plot summary, along the lines of “First this happens, then this happens, then this happens…” Synopses written this way tend to be so dry and boring even the author would have trouble understanding why anyone would want to read the full novel.” Glen C Strathy

Information, for this workshop, was taken from Writing the Novel Synopsis by Sheila Kelly and How to Write a Synopsis of Your Novel by Glen C. Strathy and From Pitch to Publication by Carole Blake.

Is it possible to write historical fiction where there is no history to base it on? If a writer wishes to set a story in prehistoric times, he or she has to find a way through this dilemma. When I came to write my novel, Undreamed Shores[i] (set between Southern England, Northern France and the Channel Islands in c2400 BC), I was consciously inspired by writers such as William Golding (The Inheritors, Faber & Faber 1955) and Elizabeth Marshall Thomas (Reindeer Moon, William Collins 1987), but still had to find my own way of approaching the task. Where history has nothing to say, one falls back on archaeology – an easy option for me, since I have a PhD in the subject, and have taught it in various universities for many years. Many of the places in Undreamed Shoresare based on real archaeological sites, and many of the objects mentioned can be seen in museums. Even some of the characters are based on skeletons excavated by archaeologists. In all of these cases, I have tried to be as faithful as possible to the evidence as I understand it.

Undreamed Shores

Archaeology, however, only takes us so far, and not nearly as far as a novelist wishes to go. It tells us nothing of the languages spoken in prehistory, of the etiquette of prehistoric peoples or their modes of courtship. It has little enough to say about their clothing, the way they dressed their hair, the sorts of medicines they used, the sort of music they enjoyed. Some of this, of course, I simply made up (it’s what fiction writers do, after all), but I drew inspiration from a variety of disciplines, ranging from social anthropology to linguistics, herbalism, the psychology of myth, the craft of oral story-telling. The story-teller, Sally Pomme Clayton; natural food expert, Robin Harford; and survival guru, Ray Mears probably all deserved credits in a list of acknowledgements that could easily have got out of hand. I drew also on my personal experiences, especially in my youth – sailing, open-water swimming, hiking, bird-watching – the reader will easily spot these!

Ancient hair clasps

A lot of my inspiration came from the countryside, which one might almost consider a character in the book (my characters walk from Chesil Beach to Stonehenge, and I actually did the walk myself, making copious notes along the way about the plants, birds and animals that I encountered) but, as a Londoner, I also took full advantage of the museums that enrich our lives in the capital. The lyre played by one of my characters is based on an Ethiopian lyre in the Horniman; the painted jackets that some characters wear are based on Native American examples in the British Museum; even the map which plays a crucial part in the plot is based on an object in the British Museum – one of the earliest maps made in the Americas.

Novelists draw inspiration from anywhere and everywhere, and this is as true with the remote past as it is with contemporary fiction.

Last week, I spent time researching and putting together a writers’ workshop designed to help authors write the dreaded synopsis. It’s a crucial tool in getting published but often neglected on courses and in writers’ groups. There are plenty of rules to follow, if you want it to be effective.

Coincidentally, I finished reading A Perfectly Good Man by Patrick Gale yesterday. I can’t imagine what his synopsis for this book would look like, as it breaks all the rules of story structure. Each chapter explores a different character at different times over a span of 60+ years, leaping backwards and forwards from the inciting event. Seven characters are looked at in depth with others important to the story included under their umbrellas.

It put me in mind of a book I read a few years ago called Olive Kitteridge. It was a novel but also a collection of short stories, each about a different character. The reader grew to understand the central character, Olive, and her story through the lives and observations of these others.

Writers are told to avoid having too many important characters and that you need a beginning, middle and end. Despite breaking these rules both books worked. The authors were so skilled; their characters came alive in my imagination. For all their flaws, I cared about them. Reading both books felt like doing a puzzle. Each chapter revealed another random piece until, gradually, the whole was revealed. Neither has the drive and pace of a thriller or crime novel but they are quietly compulsive.

Novels are what I read most and prefer to write but I’ve also written short stories, poems, plays and articles, submitting some for publication and/or competitions. This, I’m told, is good practice because it’s challenging and improves a writer’s skills. I once entered a short story competition with a piece inspired by my mother-in-law. Although told it wasn’t really a short story in the traditional sense, it won first prize and has since gone on to be included in the soon to be launched Forget-Me-Not memory book to raise money for Alzheimer’s Research UK.

I think my story worked because it was written from love and personal experience so people could relate to it. Like any art form, you need to understand the rules before you can break them and be skilled enough to pull it off.

Maria Savva has kindly supplied today’s brilliant post. She has an impressive list of published works, which I’ve added at the end. Now over to Maria:

Firstly, I would like to thank Kimm for inviting me to write a guest blog for this wonderful site. I’ve decided to write a list of tips for self-published writers. This blog post will be the first of many. I will continue with a series on my own blog in the coming months.

I started writing my first novel in 1997, and before that I wrote lots of short stories. Over the years I like to think that I have learnt a few things about writing and self-publishing that might be of some use to those writers who are starting out, or those who just need a few ideas to help navigate their way in the minefield that is modern day writing and publishing/promoting.

I’m going to list my tips in alphabetical order, to make it easier to use as a reference guide. In this first in the series, I will cover A-C. So here we go:

A

Apostrophes.

These little punctuation marks seem determined to appear in as much fiction — or non-fiction — as possible; they are the literary equivalent of people who try to get into the background when they see someone filming a news item for TV. Apostrophes have a tendency to appear in text where they are not needed, and even the most seasoned writers will admit to accidentally putting apostrophes where they don’t belong. It’s as if there is an apostrophe gremlin who is determined on world domination. It’s important to know when and when not to use these little upside-down commas… perhaps they are just drunk commas; they are often there when they shouldn’t be and missing when they should be there. One thing to note here, though, is that I started this section with the intention of making it clearer as to when apostrophes should be used, but discovered during my research that there are many grey areas, and there are many usages that are acceptable to some but not to others (now I hope you are getting an idea about how stressful the editing process can be for writers!)

2. To replace something missing from the text e.g. didn’t — the apostrophe indicates that the o is missing from not; and,

3. Less commonly, they’re used to avoid a word being read as something else. For example, where you are writing a sentence such as ‘there are two i’s in limit’ to avoid i’s being read as is. Although I will explain later why I don’t necessarily agree with some of this type of usage.

Some common mistakes I have noticed:

I most commonly see apostrophes misused in dates. For example, I’ve seen: “Television programmes in the 1980’s”

That in my opinion, is wrong (although there are some that argue it is correct usage. There are many grey areas in regard to use of apostrophes, as I mentioned above). In my opinion, this should just say: 1980s i.e. plural of 1980. The reason I say this is because there is no chance of someone misreading 1980s as something else, so why use an apostrophe?

You do need the apostrophe if you don’t use the full year and condense it to ’80s. This is because the apostrophe is then being used to indicate that there is some number missing at the start. So, if you were abbreviating the word because to cause, you would put the apostrophe in front: ’cause — to indicate missing letters.

I’ve also seen misuse where people think it indicates the plural of something, like: I took some of my CD’s. Again, in my opinion, that is wrong. It should just be CDs.

There is one usage that can be quite confusing and stumps many new writers: It’s and its.

It’s indicates it is or it has

Its is used for possession, so ‘the cat stretched its paws’ (yes, grammar is confusing).

In general, I think you should remember that where you are indicating the plural of something you don’t need the apostrophe.

I’ve just realised I could probably write a book about the misuse of apostrophes and the arguments as to when they should be used… those little blighters would be happy with that, I’m sure.

Another common mistake is where there is more than one person possessing something. In that case the apostrophe goes at the end… for example parents are two people, so if you’re talking about your parents’ house, the apostrophe goes at the end.

Names that end with S can cause confusion e.g. James. The possessive is sometimes seen as James’s or James’

I would argue that the first usage is correct, because of the way the word is pronounced i.e. you pronounce an extra S, so should use one, however, it is not necessarily considered wrong to miss off the extra S.

I could go on for ever here, but I’ll just mention one more common misuse. They’re and their are often mixed up. They’re means they are (apostrophe is used to replace missing letter); their means something belonging to them… and when I say themI mean more than one person. That’s a whole other grammar lesson that I won’t get into here…

So, my advice is to check your usage of apostrophes carefully. There are many online resources you can use if in doubt. Just Google your query and you’ll find some answers on grammar websites or forums.

So, now I have thoroughly confused you about the use of apostrophes, I will go on to the next letter:

B

BestsellerBound.com is an indie writers’ forum. Suspense author, Darcia Helle, created the site in 2010, but before she launched it, she invited mystery author, Stacy Juba, and myself to join her on the site as resident authors. We launched the forum in the late summer of 2010 and it is a very successful forum where indie writers meet to chat and discuss writing projects. We also undertake group projects such as short story anthologies.

I would advise all writers to join a writers’ forum, even if it’s not BestsellerBound. The great thing about being part of a writers’ group is that you can bounce ideas off each other, you can support each other with promotion, and also you can just have somewhere you can go to rant about things like the unavoidable bad reviews.

Blogs:

I think it’s a good idea for a writer to have a blog. A blog helps your readers get to know you a bit better, but at the same time you are in control of what you post on the blog and so can reveal as much or as little about yourself as you feel comfortable with. On my blog, which is on my Goodreads.com Author Page, I interview other authors and host giveaways of their books; I use it to promote my own books and keep readers up to date with my new projects; I also use it as somewhere I can link to interviews I have done, and just as a general place to let people know about my latest news. You can set up your own blog on WordPress or Blogspot, both seem to be quite popular with authors.

Here are links to some of my favourite author blogs that will give you an idea as to what you can use a blog for:

For most of my writing life I have entered short story competitions. I have found this a great way to keep my creativity and inspiration flowing. Many years ago I subscribed to a writers’ magazine and began to enter the monthly competitions. I haven’t entered them for a couple of years, but only because of lack of time. What I liked about entering the monthly competitions was that they were always a challenge. There would be either a theme given, a first line, last line, sometimes a photograph, or even a description of a character, and the challenge was to write a story based around this, and to keep to a certain word limit. I believe that by writing these stories regularly, I really developed my skills as a short story writer and these days I find it quite easy to write a short story without thinking too much or planning too much. I think any kind of writing contest is good for developing your writing skills and becoming a better writer. It’s not important to win the contest, but more important that you get something out of entering. I was short listed for many of the contests and I won one of them. Here’s a link to my winning story, The Game of Life, which is free to read on Freado.com: http://www.freado.com/book/9186/the-game-of-life

As well as entering contests as a challenge, you should also challenge yourself in other ways with your writing. For example, I took part in an unplanned writing experiment on Bestsellerbound a couple of years ago, where I wrote an online novella with another author, Jason McIntyre. We wrote the story online, one chapter at a time. He wrote the first one, I wrote the next, etc., and we wrote the story without planning it or consulting each other about how it would progress. That was a fun challenge, and the interesting thing about it was that it gave me a bit of an insight as to how another writer, with quite a different style of writing, would approach a story. If you ever get the opportunity to write with another writer or group of writers, I think that can teach you quite a lot about your own writing. The novella I wrote with Jason McIntyre, Cutting The Fat, is available on Amazon Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/Cutting-The-Fat-ebook/dp/B004KPM27K/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1342636329&sr=8-1&keywords=cutting+the+fat

Another challenge that other writers recommend is the NaNoWriMo – National Novel Writing Month: http://www.nanowrimo.org/ which takes place each November, when you can challenge yourself to write a novel in a month. I’ve never taken part, but have been told it’s a fun and useful thing to do. Even if you don’t finish a novel in that time, you will have a good start for your next project. It could be used as a way to kick-start your writing if you find yourself in a rut. There is a community feel about the event as many writers take part.

A few years ago the BBC ran a My Story competition and in the submission information they stated, “What makes a story special is how you tell it”. Implying content may be less important than delivery. And delivery will depend on your audience. That shouldn’t be groundbreaking news; after all you might tell a young child a different version of the same story than you would tell your best friend, partner or granny. The same is true of written stories, even stories from your own life.

Your audience might be:

Personal. You may want to write about your life just for yourself or your nearest and dearest. When my mother-in-law did that, my brother-in-law word processed it and added photographs creating a real treasure for our family.

The short story market. There are competitions and magazines that offer good money for true-life stories. You will have to conform to the rules and guidelines of submission whilst also standing out above the competition.

Readers of full-length books. When I gave up teaching to write full time, my story poured out. In four months I’d written 80,000 words but it took five years of study, editing and re-writing to craft A Life Less Lost into a compelling read. Along the way I learned the difference between autobiography and memoir.

An autobiography is the story of a life and a memoir is a story from a life.

Unless you are famous (and I am not) no one will be particularly interested in reading your life story ~ sad but true. However, if your book focuses on a specific event or experience there may be people interested in what you have to say.

My first drafts were autobiographical. I mistakenly thought people who didn’t know me would have to have everything spelled out in chronological order for it to make sense. Wrong. Readers make sense of what they read through the prism of their own experience.

Now, don’t worry, all that effort wasn’t wasted because I used it as a reference tool. But it bears no resemblance to the final draft.

Once I started writing a memoir, the book had more focus and pace. Several short anecdotes from other periods in my life were woven in to help the reader understand why I reacted or thought the way I did but only when they moved the main story along.

Blurb for A Life Less Lost:

‘You should consider carefully how you wish to spend what time you might have left with James.’

When a mother faces the ultimate threat – the suffering and potential loss of her child – every possible human resource kicks in, including her faith. A Life Less Lost charts the author’s journey through white coats, misdiagnoses, endless appointments and more.

KB Walker connects stories from her American childhood to the traumas that face her very English family to explain the hope that helps her hold her life together.